Thursday, October 3, 2013

STRIKE! (Two)

I fear I lack the magic touch that sets off the spark. Not much of a response to my call yesterday. I posted it on The Buddha Diaries. The Huffington Post added the entry promptly to my site and featured me, briefly, at the top of their front page "new posts"section. I Tweeted and Facebooked. Notwithstanding my 4,000 or so "friends" on Facebook, however, my numerous "followers" on Twitter, my faithful band of Buddha Diaries readers--I can boast little by way of response. I still think it's a good idea... A National Strike!

Today we read in the New York Times that those in most need of affordable health care, the poor, are still deprived of access to the benefits of Obamacare in Republican-dominated states--the ones that have rejected the influx of federal money that would have made it possible.

Who are these people who are so mean-spirited, so self protective, so devoted to their own interests above those of their less fortunate fellow-Americans that they feel obliged to fight to the last breath to deprive others of the basic human need for health care? Who are prepared, it seems, to literally allow others to die for lack of needed medical attention than concede a victory to the President they hate? Who will gladly set the world afire and create widespread economic chaos in order to prove so mean and petty a point?

It feels like an impotent gesture to sit in meditation and send them metta... I crave action in this circumstance, but I'm unable to figure out what it might be. A lone trip to Washington, to stand outside the House of Representatives with a placard?

A National Strike! It would cost us all so little. Shut down the country for a day? Now that would be saying something...! Why don't we give it a try?